MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/. Russian presidential envoy for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with a visiting Houthi delegation led by Ansar Allah spokesman Mohamed Abdel Salam to discuss the current escalation of the situation in the Red Sea, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"Special attention was focused on the development of the situation in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as the current escalation in the Red Sea. In this context, they strongly condemned the United States and United Kingdom’s ongoing strikes on Yemen in bypassing the United Nations Charter," the ministry said.

The sides exchanged views on the problems of comprehensive settlement of the nine-year-long military-political crisis in Yemen. "The stressed the importance of building up international efforts toward creating conditions for a full-scale UN-brokered intra-Yemeni dialogue," it said.

Following the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Ansar Allah movement warned that they would carry out strikes on Israeli territory and would bar any ships associated with the Jewish state from sailing across the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until the operation in the Palestinian enclave ended. Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have attacked dozens of civilian ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

In response to the Houthi attacks, Washington announced establishing an international coalition and launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to ensure freedom of navigation and protection of vessels in the Red Sea. Since then, the US and UK militaries have regularly delivered joint strikes on the rebels’ military targets across Yemen.